Alright, here is the synopsis. Bojack is a deeply depressed horse-person living in Hollywood. The first few episodes or so are nothing special, but then it gets very dark and in depth very quickly, with a huge amount of development for everyone.

The overall premise is that in spite of being a world with cartoon animals and basically a sitcom, all those wacky sitcom situations end up having horrible consequences for everyone involved. Things are never back to normal one episode later.

the over all premise is also that every animal is a loony-toonish person-animal, with varying degrees of animal traits and people behaviors, and a lot of great animal puns and sight gags.

Season three is devastating, even compared to the first three seasons. It's also got some really funny moments, and it's a really well made cartoon. There's some amazing voice acting performances, and they put a lot of work into showing subtle signs of aging in cartoon horse people.

Kinda unrelated, does anyone know if or where Lisa Hanawalt might have been active in webcomic communities?

*An episode about abortion in a serious manner*Really, anything involving Diane. She may be the mouthpiece of the writers, but it's not done in an insulting manner and she's most definitely not a Mary Sue. What sells her as a mouthpiece is that she usually loses, which has far more impact emotionally.*Bojack's irredeemable bitch of a mom becoming sympathetic with a bit of backstory*Thoughts and prayers, especially relevant now, about how Hollywood is basically the source of the glorification of firearms that leads to mass shootings and how utterly disconnected they are from it all (more concerned about how a mass shooting in a mall is going to hurt a movie where an actress shoots up a mall)*I want to be an architect. Saddest 6 words you will ever hear.*Michelle Branch is still alive and singing (horse with no name)

I thought the third season was weak, being too much of a repeat of season two. As such I was a bit sceptical towards season four, but warmed up to it after a few episodes. Then the last few episodes of s4 hit me like a brick. I hope this will continue with the fifth one.

Where after 4 seasons, we finally get to see present-Bojack genuinely happy. Almost as powerful as the running monkey from the end of season 2.

But for me, the whammies were

Spoiler:

The second to last episode, when we see Beatrice's life and actually hear her voice actress doing wonders while she begs Henrietta to agree to not keep the baby, and just how you suddenly feel sorry for the horrible horrible bitch

Princess Caroline's episode, when she reveals that the whole framing device was just in her imagination

And really, Todd's character growth. Todd isn't my favorite character, being not particularly bright and a bit too wacky, but the whole thing with him accidentally being a fashion model results in demonstrating that asexual is normal. Really, show me another show where a character is outright stated to be asexual and it's not treated as a defect.

I watched season 4, then went back and binge watched 1-3, and now doing 4 over again. I liked 4's ending better than 2 and 3. Maybe because the emotional gut punches in those seasons were too much for me. They were good seasons, but damn, those last episodes...

Not sure I liked:

Spoiler:

The Beatrice flashback episode. I guess I think too many shows try to rehab a terrible character by blaming their upbringing or something. Yes, Bojack is terrible, and had a bad family life - but he's the main character. Going back and kind of saying 'well, don't blame his mom, she had a shitty life too' feels like a cop out. There are some genuinely shitty people out there. But that's maybe more a complaint about TV in general, and not Bojack specifically.

A little worried about Todd:

Spoiler:

Slightly worried they're going to have him fall in love and not be asexual anymore. I think if this was on network TV instead of Netflix that would happen.

I do really enjoy the show. There are some great jokes, the animation is well done with some nice background jokes. Mr. PB seems like exactly how an anthropomorphic dog would act.

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. - CS Lewis

He's asexual and a ditz, but not aromantic. He did have a girlfriend before, he just didn't have any desire to consummate it which was one of several reasons they broke up. So him falling in love with Yolanda is not in any way a cop out, so long as they don't have sex. Unless Yolanda is actually demisexual, which could add some interesting tension to the relationship.

The Beatrice flashback episode. I guess I think too many shows try to rehab a terrible character by blaming their upbringing or something. Yes, Bojack is terrible, and had a bad family life - but he's the main character. Going back and kind of saying 'well, don't blame his mom, she had a shitty life too' feels like a cop out. There are some genuinely shitty people out there. But that's maybe more a complaint about TV in general, and not Bojack specifically.

I don't think suffering redeems a person, and I don't think it's used here to make the audience forgive the character. A lot of her misery is still her own making and Beatrice

Spoiler:

puts a teenage girl in the hospital by secretly feeding her amphetamines, and it's pretty clear she knows what she's doing, even if she's not fully cognizant of the context

She's still clearly a horrible person, and very nearly deserves where she ends up. But it's also clear that lashing out at her now doesn't help anything or make anyone feel better, it's just more pain.

After the first few episodes I didn't think that much of it, thinking it's much like Rick & Morty in (dialogue, animation, philosophy) style except bleaker because the episodes don't usually end on a high note. And where both offer lots of "ironic satire" or whatever you call it, R&M has adventures in alternate dimensions, whereas Bojack doesn't.But the rest of the season deepened the story/dynamics enough that I couldn't stop watching. And it made me feel sad and happy and sad and happy and sad again.

And thumbs up for the drug scene: good pacing, nice scenes, good endurance. Most directors just give up within 3 minutes of hallucations.